Kelly Fang has always considered herself an ally – supportive, but more as a voice in the background. As a senior on-site well-being program manager for HealthPartners, serving as a health coach at Macalester College, she’s already involved with a diverse and inclusive community. Welcoming and getting to know the personal lives of the college’s LGBTQ+ community, including transgender and gender nonconforming members, is already a beloved part of her job.

But her true motivation to become more involved started with her child. At around 3 years old, her assigned-female-at-birth child started wanting to dress more masculinely. At first, they wanted to wear Spider-Man shirts all the time (“No problem! Let’s do it!”). But eventually it became pretty clear that it wasn’t just a phase. Over time, their need to be their authentic self became persistent, insistent and consistent.

As Kelly remembers, “this was coming from a 3- to 4-year-old. I had turned to my husband at some points and I was like ‘where is this coming from?’ ... they were three or four doing nothing but going to preschool and watching cartoons. There’s no way that they just made this up.”

Now, seven years later, Kelly’s loving support for her child has grown into becoming an ally for transgender youth and the LGBTQ+ community. In today’s Off the Charts, Kelly talks about her journey as a mom, a health coach and a member of the LGBTQ+ colleague resource group (CRG) at HealthPartners. Listen to the episode or read the transcript.

A mom’s personal journey of allyship

Ready to take on the role of becoming an ally, Kelly’s first step was to educate herself on LGBTQ+ issues, going to her local library and reading as much as she could. As Kelly says, “I was always a supporter, but more on the sidelines. So, I needed to really step up and learn more about the issues that are impacting the community that could impact my own child.” The second step was to reach out for guidance. When her child was starting kindergarten, she had an initial meeting with a counselor and then was referred to a counselor specializing in transgender youth.

Third, after a few years of educating herself and supporting her child, “I felt like I wanted to do more and was ready to do more. So that was when I decided to join our LGBTQ+ CRG at HealthPartners ... my family didn’t have a lot of friends in the LGBTQ+ community and colleagues I didn’t know of, so I wanted to have more of those relationships. It’s one thing to read about the issues. It’s another thing to put faces and names to the people those issues impact. So, I really wanted to become a part of that community in a way, but as an ally.”

In addition to wanting to join a community and become more involved in LGBTQ+ issues, Kelly wanted to join the CRG to become a resource for other parents. “I assumed I probably wasn’t the only parent at HealthPartners dealing with these issues. Perhaps somebody would find their way to our CRG and want some support. We have a peer support network that the CRG started that’s a great resource to check out.”

The five steps of becoming an ally

As Kelly talks about it during the podcast, not everyone’s allyship journey is the same. Being an ally also means taking care of yourself first, making sure that you’re ready as a person to be able to take on more. For her, it also included being conscious about not jumping on a bandwagon.

“I wanted to be very thoughtful about it and give it time to say ‘we’re still very new in this journey and I don’t know where this is going, so I needed to, honestly, settle in and get more comfortable’ . . . and then, once I did, it was like ‘all right, I’m ready to challenge myself a bit.’”

When you feel like you’re ready, Kelly recommends these five incremental steps:

• Be a voter – “Start with your vote ... if you care about an issue, put your vote where you stand.”
• Be an upstander – “If you see things happening, then intervene. Speak up. Don’t allow that kind of language or behavior to exist in your space.”
• Be a volunteer – “That’s another easy way to get involved and show up for people to help them, again, around the issues that are important to them.”
• Be an organizer – “If you’re willing to challenge yourself, be more of an organizer. I joined the LGBTQ+ CRG to be a bit more of an organizer to help make things happen.”
• Be a disruptor – “It’s when you’re really willing to stick your neck out and question the status quo, the way things are done, or be willing to stand up for people.”

All this said, it’s important to know that it’s okay to take time to get yourself to a spot where you feel like you’re able to take on more – that’s still being an ally. It’s easy to get stuck thinking that you’re not doing enough or that you’re being selfish. Just remember that you really do need to take time and have it be okay within yourself to be and advocate for somebody else. As on airplanes as it is in life, “apply your own oxygen before helping others.”

Kelly’s advice for parents of transgender youth

For parents new to LGBTQ+ allyship, it’s okay to be a little afraid or uncertain. That’s why support is key with help from family, friends, neighbors and a counselor. It’s also good to look for an online support group. “I found (one) through Gender Spectrum – a great organization I would look into if you’re looking for support. I joined an online parent support group there, and it was very clear to me pretty quickly when 20, 30 other parents logged into this support group call, and I was like ‘Okay, I’m not alone. This is great.’”

Allies definitely need allies, especially for support when you’re struggling. As Kelly, Dr. Jackson and Dr. Haley discuss during the podcast, there are always going to be highs and lows. Highs of feeling ready to help others, but lows of when you’re feeling down and you need someone to hold you up. You need that community and people in your life to give you that support so you can be ready to help others when you bounce back.

“Having their support definitely helps me be more confident, and going forward, if I didn’t have it, it would be (tough). So, for those that don’t have that family support, it’s really important that you seek that out, whether it’s through your own counselor or a support group.”

Finally, as Kelly concludes, it’s important to “trust your child that this is how they truly feel like they are meant to be, and that it’s their authentic self that’s trying to come out, and it’s your job as a parent to help them flourish in whatever way that looks like.”

To hear more from Kelly, including the progress she sees being made inside and outside of HealthPartners, how her work as a health coach made it easier to support her child and the impact of sharing personal stories, listen to this episode of Off the Charts.